EMERGENCY CHUTES

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Mayday Emergency Parachute for Paragliders

Apco Aviation started manufacturing the Mayday in 1984, and since then put over 30 000 pieces into
service in the Paragliding and Hang Gliding markets. The Mayday has hundreds of life saving
deployments to its name, from beginners to world champions
(
Read letters from saved pilots).

The Mayday is availabe in four sizes, all available with a short or long bridle,
for paragliding or hang gliding. Apco also manufactures a wide range of accessories for the
Mayday range. This includes front and side mounted external containers for paragliding as
well as external containers for hang gliding, split bridles, long bridle extensions,
UV-sleeves and much more.

The Mayday 20 passing the high speed (160daN at 50 knots) deployment test

MATERIALS & CONSTRUCTION

Over the years the basic design and construction techniques have remained the same -
there is not much to improve on a winning design and best seller as Mayday,
even though it is continuously perfected and polished, insuring that it is updated
on even the smallest details. All four of the of Mayday parachutes are "Flat Circular Pulled Down Apex"
in design. In 1998 the Mayday Bi was released in a Pulled down Apex version, and soon after the Mayday 20 hit the market.

The Mayday boasts superior construction and materials. The canopy cloth is F111
"zero porosity" ripstop nylon. The skirt and apex skirt is reinforced with 1'mil spec nylon tape,
neatly wrapped and stiched with a precision four-needle machine. The line attachments have V-Tab reinforcements,
sewn in place with a computerized machine, ensuring consistantly high quality and strength.

The Bridle is made from 6000 pound Nylon Webbing (UV Resistant). The attachment loop is
covered with a Teflon sheath, to protect it from dangerous friction which may occur
during deployment. Finally the bridle has a line sheath attached,
to protect the lines where they link to it.

SPECIFICATIONS

Mayday

Area [m2]

Gores

Weight [kg]

Sink Rate [m/s]

Max Load [kg]

Certification

16

23

16

1.863

6.3 (at max load)

106

DHV

18

30

18

2.220

5.4

120

SHV

20

37

20

2.690

5.4

160

AFNOR/CEN

Bi

47

18

3.250

5.4

200

AFNOR

COMPARISON TESTS

The Mayday has been compared for a long time with some other rescue systems, but according to
the findings of the Italian Free Flight Federation (FIVL), it still comes out on top.
A series of tests, made from a fixed balloon in November 1997, attended amoungst others
by Swiss Federation expert Alain Zoller. Over 20 modern reserve systems were tested.

Many vital properties of an emergency parachute were assessed, such as opening speed
at high and low velocity, sink rate and stability during descent. The Mayday 16 was the
second smallest parachute on test and yet it consistently performed
at the top even in sink rate and stability. The only systems with a better
sink rate were; 31.7m2, 34.1m2 and 43.4m2, all at least 10m2 larger than the
Mayday's 22.1m2 and in the case of the Trekking F22 at 43.3m2 nearly twice as big.
The Mayday is a pulled down apex reserve parachute, which possesses the one thing
that wasn't tested - reliability. But over the years the reliability of the system has
been well proven. Anatoly Cohn recalls that the system has saved hundreds of pilots
around the world. At a time when trends and gimmicks regularly come and go the
Mayday has been saving pilots since 1984. What other system can boast a fact
like that?